Salvation Army honors late volunteer Joseph Barnes by instituting Volunteer of the Year Award

The Republican file photo | Don TreegerJoseph C. Barnes is shown with his wife, Anita, in 2005. The Salvation Army founded a statewide Volunteer of the Year Award to honor Barnes, who died of pulmonary hypertension in February at the age of 47.

WESTFIELD - A statewide volunteer award inspired by a local man was instituted by the Salvation Army this year and will annually recognize someone who gives as much of themselves to the agency as did Joseph C. Barnes.

Barnes was 47 when he lost his life in February to pulmonary hypertension, but his name will live on in a Volunteer of the Year award founded in his honor by the non-profit agency that became an extended family to him for the seven years he volunteered for the Salvation Army.

Gail Lagasse, coordinator of the Westfield Salvation Army Service Center on Arnold Street, said the award was given this year for the first time to Barnes’ family and will subsequently be awarded each year to a volunteer who shows the same commitment and dedication to the organization as Barnes.

“Joe went way beyond what you would expect a volunteer to do,” Lagasse said. “I think of how he would react to an award being named for him, and (it) would be an ‘aw shucks’ reaction.”

Lagasse came to know Barnes, his wife, Anita, and their children, a 10-year-old boy and 17-year-old girl, when he was initially diagnosed with the disease and was told he could no longer work.

“He had to stop working and offered to volunteer. It turned into a full-time volunteer job, and he was our treasurer for the last seven years. I still have the feeling that he’s here. I haven’t adjusted yet that he’s not here,” she said.

That appreciation, Lagasse noted, went both ways. His work on behalf of the Salvation Army Service Center gave Barnes a sense of purpose in a world that no longer seemed to need him.

“He needed us as much as we needed him,” she said. “The Salvation Army made it possible for him to be part of a society he couldn’t be part of anymore.”

While the award was given this year to the Barnes family in honor of Joe, in subsequent years officials will consider as a recipient someone “walks the talk,” Lagasse said.

“They will look at years of volunteer service, number of service hours, someone who is a strong part of the community in which they volunteer, someone who helps make us successful in fund-raising.”